Tuesday, June 16, 2015

The British Court of Inquiry into the Lusitania sinking opens, and the fix is in. It’s a propaganda exercise, pure and simple. Any survivors who might criticize the Admiralty, the Cunard Line, or Capt. Turner (American passengers are most critical) are excluded as witnesses, and the inquiry is headed by Lord Mersey, who also ran the Titanic inquiry and decided that no one had done anything wrong. Lawyers representing victims and survivors are present, but Attorney General Sir Edward Carson is censoring their questions.

The main item of business on the first day (the inquiry will last only 3 – Carson says he doesn’t intend to bring “a raft of evidence” – really, Edward, really?) is to disprove that the ship was armed.

Frank Sheehy-Skeffington, Irish nationalist and feminist, was arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act for making statements “causing disaffection and affecting recruitment” (a speech against the prospect of conscription). Sentenced to 6 months, he hunger struck, like his suffragette wife Hanna back in the day, and has been released after 7 days under the Cat and Mouse Act, the first time the Act has been used for a non-suffrage-related offense.